“I think he said: ‘and maize.’”

Even while expressing doubt about this addition, two problems remain:

First: His teacher ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd—chief of the Muʿtazilah—of whom al-Dhahabī said in al-Ḍuʿafāʾ: “He heard from al-Ḥasan; Ayyūb and Yūnus declared him a liar, and al-Nasāʾī abandoned him.” I say: a man of this sort is unfit to be cited even as corroborating evidence, much less as primary proof—assuming, that is, the report is actually established from him, which will shortly be shown not to be the case.

Second: Sufyān himself never settled the doubt he voiced, for al-Bayhaqī transmits another wording from Sufyān that reads only: “al-sult,” without any mention of “maize.”

Al-sult is a type of barley, white and hull-less, as explained in al-Nihāyah. Thus it falls under the original four categories, and this version therefore accords perfectly with the sound hadith, as is obvious.

It appears that such critical scrutiny escaped Imām al-Shawkānī, for after citing the narration of ʿAmr b. Shuʿayb that contains the discarded narrator he appended in Nayl al-Awṭār 4/122: “Yet it is buttressed by the mursal reports of Mujāhid and al-Ḥasan!”

Evidently, may Allah have mercy on him, he did not investigate their chains; otherwise he would not have made that claim. How could he, when the mursal report of al-Ḥasan also contains the rejected narrator, in addition to the uncertainty found in one of the two transmissions from him? And the other transmission—were it sound—actually corroborates the authentic hadith and lends no support whatsoever to this spurious addition!